Ramblings from travels to the interior and exterior

On the Allure of Fiction

It is entirely possible to get so sucked into one’s head that when one surfaces back into the real world, the result is bewilderment, perplexity, disorientation.

Every so often, I retreat into my head like this, only the barest fraction of my consciousness devoted into such peripherals as work, sustenance, conversation, sleep. It goes without saying that it’s impossible to interact with me when I’m like this (a state easily achieved when I start reading particularly absorbing books or watching particularly absorbing films).

I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that like most children who grow up with books as friends, fictive worlds are just as real (if not even more vivid) than raw life itself.

And many times, fictive worlds are not just more real and vivid, but certainly more appealing than raw life itself.

(And herein lies my ultimate struggle with meditation: the struggle to love the world as it is rather than as it should be or could be.)